Received: 5 November 2018 | Revised: 5 February 2019 | Accepted: 26 February 2019 DOI: 10.1111/fme.12346 ORIGINAL ARTICLE The hidden value of artisanal fisheries in Honduras Steven Canty1,2 | Manuela Funes3 | Stephen Box4 | Kyrstn Zylich5 | Brittany Derrick5 | Esther Divovich5 | Alasdair Lindop5 | Daniel Pauly5 | Dirk Zeller6 1Smithsonian Marine Station, Fort Pierce, Florida Abstract 2Manchester Metropolitan University, Declining fisheries catches are a global trend, with management failing to keep pace Manchester, UK with growth in fishing effort and technological advances. The economic value of 3CESIMAR‐CONICET, Puerto Madryn, Argentina Honduras’ catches was estimated within the industrial and artisanal sectors. Catches 4Rare Inc., Arlington, Virginia were found to be 2.9 times greater than the official statistics between 1950 and 5Sea Around Us, University of British 2015. The merging of industrial and artisanal catch data masked the decline in indus‐ Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, trial catches and hid the strong growth of artisanal fisheries. In 1996, annual artisanal Canada 6Sea Around Us–Indian Ocean, School of fisheries landed catches surpassed the industrial fishery sector, and in 2000, the an‐ Biological Sciences, University of Western nual net value of artisanal fisheries eclipsed the value of the industrial fisheries. Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia These data highlight the importance of artisanal fisheries in Honduras and challenge the long‐held belief that the industrial sector contributes more to the national Correspondence Steven Canty, Smithsonian Marine Station, economy. The global paucity of fisheries data highlights the need for comprehensive Fort Pierce, FL. strategies to collect more detailed and accurate fisheries data. Email: [email protected] KEYWORDS Funding information Summit Foundation; Marisla Foundation; artisanal fisheries, catch reconstruction, fisheries data, industrial fisheries, IUU fishing, marine Oak Foundation; Paul M. Angell Family fisheries, small‐scale fisheries, subsistence fisheries Foundation; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; David and Lucile Packard Foundation 1 | INTRODUCTION stock management and the potential for cross‐border fishing ac‐ tivities (Perez, 2009). The Republic of Honduras is located on the Central America Fishing has been an important economic sector in Honduras for Isthmus, with coastlines on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans more than 100 years (MacKenzie & Stehlik, 1996), contributing 5% (Figure 1). In accordance with the United Nations Convention of the country's gross domestic product with an average value of on the Law of the Sea, Honduras claimed its exclusive economic US $385 million per year (Beltrán Turriago, 2011). Fishers employ a zones (EEZs) in both the Atlantic (within FAO statistical Area 31) diverse range of gears to exploit lagoon and riverine systems, coral and the Pacific (within FAO statistical Area 77). The north shore reefs, other near‐shore habitats (e.g. seagrass beds), extensive off‐ of Honduras, located within the Caribbean basin of the Atlantic shore banks and pelagic waters (Box & Canty, 2011; Soto, 2012). The Ocean, is the longer of the two coastlines and is bordered by the main fisheries on the Caribbean coast are for Caribbean spiny lob‐ EEZs of Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, ster, Panulirus argus (Latreille), and queen conch, Lobatus gigas (L.), Jamaica and Nicaragua. The Pacific coastline is much smaller while the main fishery on the Pacific coast targets western white and is exclusively within the Gulf of Fonseca, fully enclosed by shrimp, Litopenaeus occidentalis (Streets) (FAO 2002). the EEZs of El Salvador and Nicaragua (Figure 1). The sharing of Artisanal and subsistence fisheries have been present in EEZ borders with numerous countries, particularly within the Honduras at least since the Mayan era, however, the large expan‐ Honduran Caribbean, has implications for transboundary fish sion of artisanal fisheries across the Caribbean and Pacific coasts © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA. Fish Manag Ecol. 2019;1–11. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fme | 1 2 | CANTY ET AL. is a relatively recent phenomenon, commencing in the 1970s most fundamental of all fisheries data. Comprehensive and accurate (MacKenzie & Stehlik, 1996). Artisanal fisheries provide an essential records of fisheries’ catches are important to allow monitoring of fish‐ source of nutrition and employment to coastal communities, espe‐ eries’ trends over time, with the effect of fisheries’ regulations to be cially in remote coastal areas where there are few other economic observed, and subsequently adjusted if required (Belhabib, Koutob, alternatives. Due to a lack of processing infrastructure, catches from Sall, Lam & Pauly, 2014). However, while technological advances in the Honduran Pacific coast supply only national markets (Box & fishing vessels and gears are evident, systems to record catch data Bonilla, 2009), while artisanal fisheries on the Caribbean coast sup‐ and monitor fisheries have not kept pace. There is a chronic need ply both national and international markets. In addition, the shallow for improvements in data collection and the incorporation of these hydrology precludes the deployment of larger boats within the Gulf data into fisheries management (Pauly et al., 2002). The status of of Fonseca, which restricts the Honduran industrial fishery to the the world's fisheries may be worse than currently perceived, given Atlantic coast (Soto, 2012). that a large fraction of catches has been missing from national fish‐ The Honduran national industrial fishery began in the late eries catch estimates in virtually every country of the world (Pauly & 1950s (FAO, 2002). Previously, only foreign industrial fleets, mainly Zeller, 2016a,2016b). Crucially, the pattern of missing data changed from the United States, were fishing and landing in Honduras. As over time as an inadvertent by‐product of well‐intentioned efforts to international fleets began to leave Honduran waters, the national improve data collection systems, resulting in a time series bias now industrial fishing fleet started to develop. An additional trigger known as “presentist bias” (Zeller & Pauly, 2018). Thus, there is a con‐ was the collapse of the United States industrial conch fishery in certed global effort led by the Sea Around Us initiative to reconstruct 1975, which enabled the Honduran industrial fishery to start sup‐ national, and by extension, regional and global fishing statistics that plying the United States market. Currently, 90%–95% of indus‐ add comprehensive estimates for all unreported catches to officially trial marine catches are exported, primarily to the United States reported landing data to derive a better and more comprehensive (Espinoza, 2007). Recreational fisheries are practised across the understanding of fisheries catches over time (Funes et al., 2015; Honduran shore in the Caribbean, but sport fishing operations are Pauly & Zeller, 2016a,2016b; Zeller, Booth, Davis & Pauly, 2007; primarily located in the Bay Islands, where the majority of inter‐ Zeller, Harper, Zylich & Pauly, 2015; Zylich et al., 2014). national tourism is concentrated, receiving over 700,000 tourists The starting point for reconstructions is the official reported per year (INE, 2018). landing data provided by national agencies to the Food and Signs of overexploitation have been documented in Honduran Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); these data fisheries. The conch fishery closed in 2003 due to a trade embargo are subsequently compared with the formal and grey literature, and placed on conch exports by the Convention on International Trade inferences on additional, previously unreported catches are vali‐ in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES, 2003). The dated with local experts (Zeller et al., 2016), Funes et al. (2015) and Nassau grouper, Epinephelus striatus (Bloch), population collapsed from reconstructed marine fisheries catch data for the Republic of in 2004 (Box & Bonilla, 2009). According to Honduran fishers, the Honduras, by deriving the best time series estimates of unreported decline and collapse of these fisheries was a consequence of ir‐ catches for 1950–2010, from both the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines responsible fishing practices and habitat degradation via destruc‐ to complement reported data. The present study revised, improved tive fishing gears (Korda, Hills & Gray, 2008), which mirrors trends and extended the analysis performed in Funes et al. (2015), by up‐ in Jamaica (Hughes, 1994) and the Caribbean as a whole (Gobert dating the time series to 2015, rectifying all estimates of fishing et al., 2005). categories, completing the lacking fishing categories and enhancing Overfishing is a great challenge facing governments and the sci‐ the sources of data. Once the corrected reconstructed catch was entific community (FAO, 2016). As a minimum requirement, effective available, the aim was to describe and compare statistically the catch management requires reliable data, with catch data representing the trends over the years, and to evaluate the economies of the fisheries (a) (b) FIGURE 1 Maps of the two parts of the Honduran exclusive economic zone (EEZ). (a): Honduras’ EEZ in the Caribbean covers 218,000 km2, of which 60,300 km2 is shelf, that is, less than 200